As well as Abergavenny, we have high hopes of setting up a new Operation Noah group in the Midlands. One man I met at a public meeting there recently, Tim Weller, is a key mover with Transition Town Stourbridge. He sent me this email:
Dear Mark,
I do despair of any energy reductions when at my doctor's surgery this afternoon, one receptionist said that the energy-consuming, ubiquitous TV could not be switched off because of patient confidentiality. The receptionists talk about patients and need the damn television blasting out to drown out their confidential talk!
Such people will not be impressed by 90% cuts by 2030. Nor those who carelessly leave lights on, or install constant boiling hot water boilers that are never allowed to be switched off in my office, or use the much-loved 2 Kw heaters to supplement the central heating or, the latest, portable air conditioners that are now brought in and used even when windows are left open, or my directorate that builds new social care centres with floodlighting for CCTV cameras when they have super-secure windows and doors and are in low-crime areas anyway!
Aren't targets always missed and even simply ignored? Is not 99% of the population energy illiterate, complacent and careless and just not interested in saving energy let alone are prepared to meet targets?
What do you think? What answer would you give to Tim's despairing questions?
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The Economy of Ecology